e genitive of
How, one of the numerous medieval forms of Hugh (Chapter VI). Hind
may be for Hine, a farm servant (Chapter III), or for Mid. Eng. hende,
courteous (cf. for the vowel change Ind, Chapter XIII), and is perhaps
sometimes also an animal nickname (Beasts, Chapter XXIII). Rouse is
generally Fr. roux, i.e. the red, but it may also be the nominative
form of Rou, i.e. of Rolf, or Rollo, the sea-king who conquered
Normandy. [Footnote: Old French had a declension in two cases. The
nominative, which has now almost disappeared, was usually
distinguished by -s. This survives in a few words, e.g. fils, and
proper names such as Charles, Jules, etc] Was Holman the holy man,
the man who lived near a holm, i.e. holly (Chapter XII), on a holm, or
river island (Chapter XII), or in a hole, or hollow? All these
origins have equal claims.

As a rule, when an apparent nickname is also susceptible of another
solution, baptismal, local, or occupative, the alternative explanation
is to be preferred, as the popular tendency has always been towards
twisting names into significant words. Thus, to take an example of
each class, Diamond is sometimes for an old name Daymond (Daegmund),
Portwine is a corruption of Poitevin, the man from Poitou (Chapter
XI), and Tipler, which now suggests alcoholic excess, was, as late as
the seventeenth century, the regular name for an alehouse keeper.

In a very large number of cases there is a considerable choice for the
modern bearer of a name. Any Boon or Bone who wishes to assert that

Of Hereford's high blood he came,
A race renown'd for knightly fame
(Lord of the Isles, vi. 15),

can claim descent from de Bohun. While, if he holds that kind hearts
are more than coronets, he has an alternative descent from some
medieval le bon. This adjective, used as a personal name, gave also
Bunn and Bunce; for the spelling of the latter name cf. Dance for
Dans, and Pearce for Piers, the nominative of Pierre (Alternative
Origins, Chapter I), which also survives in Pears and Pearson. Swain
may go back to the father of Canute, or to some hoary-headed swain
who, possibly, tended the swine. Not all the Seymours are St. Maurs.
Some of them were once Seamers, i.e. tailors. Gosling is rather
trivial, but it represents the romantic Jocelyn, in Normandy Gosselin,
a diminutive of the once very popula